Bus Face-Off

The Worcester Buses are something that we take for granted. They're the modern extension of earlier days when public transportation was considered a necessary municipal service. Back then, municipalities built infrastructure for the long term by laying tracks and running electric-powered trolleys.
Today, we have what has evolved from that... a semi-privatized nightmare based on ideology, competition, and the added burden of turning a profit.

That's why the bus drivers have a union.

If they didn't, the bus drivers in the city would be paid minimum wage and no benefits, or less (if the company could figure out a way to get away with it). A fleet of city buses needs to have drivers who aren't exhausted (from having to work a second job) and who aren't so poor that they have to live on the street.

The viability of the public transportation system needn't be predicated upon how much the drivers get paid. Unfortunately, the only thing that makes public transportation unviable these days is the fact that the country is being run by hooligans from the oil industry, and fuel costs threaten the viability of just about everything.

Meanwhile, the bus company in Worcester has been, ostensibly, bargaining with the bargaining unit on the new contract. An article in the T&G on June 12th seemed to indicate that they were bargaining in earnest. Then the end of the contract came up and it was extended 30 days according to (the last entry in) the T&G Digest section June 30th. Since then, things seem to have only gotten worse, according this report from July 13th.

The last time the bus drivers went on strike, I was working in dispatch answering the phones. It was completely overwhelming.

After the strike was over, I managed to talk to a few bus drivers over the next few months. The thing that struck me as being the most egregious "working condition", one that the last strike never resolved, was the fact that bus drivers do not have access to bathroom facilities.

Think about this for a moment.

Work out the logisitics of driving busloads of people on a tight schedule and HOW a driver is supposed to be able to relieve themselves when nature calls.

This may be a socially frowned upon subject to deal with in public, but going to the bathroom is an activity that everybody engages in every day. Most of us don't consider it a problem as to when, where, or how this can be done during working hours.

If you broach this subject with a bus driver in the city of Worcester, however, you'll find that the subject isn't taboo, and that it's one of the many persisting labor relations problems they face on the job every day.

Basically, you can boycott Wal-Mart because products are made in overseas sweatshops all you want, but until you find out the working conditions and anti-union bias that people driving buses right here in Worcester are earnestly attempting to deal with RIGHT NOW... you just haven't stepped up to the plate.

Support the bus drivers!